Title: The Hidden Costs of Subsidies: Export Trends in Germany’s Electric Vehicle Market
with Amadeus Bach (University of Mannheim), Davud Rostam-Afschar (University of Mannheim) (draft available upon request)

Abstract: Governments increasingly use tax-financed purchase subsidies to accelerate the adoption of battery electric vehicles (BEVs). When eligibility is defined by administratively verifiable proxies rather than by sustained domestic use, such programs can create legal arbitrage margins that shift environmental benefits elsewhere. We examine Germany’s Environmental Bonus by combining nationwide vehicle stock data with model-level subsidy eligibility information to study whether subsidized BEVs exit the German register unusually quickly. We find that eligible BEVs have significantly lower survival than comparable non-subsidized vehicles: the survival gap is approximately 9\% after one year and grows to about 20\% by three years, corresponding to no less than \texteuro180 million in fiscal transfers. The results suggest that adoption incentives for durable goods may require retention or clawback provisions to align public spending with domestic policy objectives.

Keywords: Electric mobility, subsidies, environmental regulation

Work in Progress

Title: Effects of Corporate Climate Litigation on Carbon Disclosure

with Amadeus Bach (University of Mannheim), Nicolas Rudolf (University of Lausanne (HEC))

Abstract: The world’s largest companies produce most global emissions, yet efforts to curb them have remained mainly voluntary. Litigation can be a tool to compel corporate emission reductions. This paper examines how climate lawsuits affect industry peers of the sued firms. Using a global dataset of corporate climate lawsuits from 2004 to 2024, we employ a robust staggered difference-in-differences approach comparing close peers of litigated firms to more distant peers.

Keywords: Climate litigation, corporate emissions, peer effects, spillover effects, environmental disclosure, carbon intensity